The New Games Heading To Virtual Reality

In the ever-expanding realm of virtual reality, often the most exciting changes and advancements take place outside of the gaming sphere. For instance, we posted last fall about VR breathing new life into African fossils, and that’s just one of a growing number of scientific and educational uses for the technology. Because gaming still drives the industry to a great extent, however, it’s a good idea to check in on what’s going on there from time to time as well. As we move forward into 2018, these are some of the games and types of games that are being introduced to VR.

A New Twist On Strategy Games

A lot of gaming enthusiasts have long felt that virtual reality is potentially a great platform for real-time strategy (RTS) games. Generally these games are played out on PCs or mobile devices, and involve commanding battalions of soldiers, gathering resources, building territories, etc. against opponents who are doing the same. It’s been somewhat slow to reach VR, but lately there’s been a lot of buzz about the new game Brass Tactics. One review said that with this game, VR finally gets its AAA-quality RTS game. That’s quite a statement, but one that seems to add up. It’s a gorgeous game with fun, active graphics that allow you to handle your strategy while overlooking actual kingdoms and battlefields. It’s simply a different kind of gaming that should lead to much more in the same vein.

Casino-Style Arcades

Of all these games it’s maybe most surprising that casino games haven’t made a major impact just yet. Given that this is a genre constantly striving for more realistic gameplay, as well as a fairly straightforward one to animate, it seems quite well suited to virtual reality. Even if adoption has been slow though, there are several existing examples of games in this category, including animated slots, virtual roulette, and real-time blackjack and poker games. Right now these are semi-obscure online options that don’t get too much publicity, but they’ll be headed to VR in no time.

Improved Shooters

If you look at most any list of the most exciting virtual reality games coming out in 2018, you’ll probably find that at least a quarter of them are shooters. Bravo Team VR, Firewall: Zero Hours VR, and Blunt Force are just a few of the titles indicating that this is going to be a rapidly growing category in the near future.

Satirical Games

This may rub some people the wrong way, but VR games are getting political in an interesting way. The main example is The American Dream, a VR game that’s effectively a satire about gun control. In it, you learn how certain guns work, but you also use them for basically everything you do – grilling, grocery shopping, whatever. This is a very specific example, but it speaks to the idea of how VR can be used to drop you into situations that speak to a given problem, paradox, etc. There’s no telling for sure if it will spark a trend, but one can certainly imagine smaller experiences and cheaper games being designed largely as satirical arguments.